


As They Are Bidden, So Do They Act

by tielan



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Gen, Vignette, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elua's precept is simply this: to love as thou wilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As They Are Bidden, So Do They Act

_Elua loves us all and bids us but this one thing: that we should love as we wilt._

Imriel learns it amidst the poppies of the field, beneath the statue of Elua, looking kindly down upon his children. When Brother Selbert bids them rise, he shakes out the dust in his sandals and runs after Cadmar and Beryl and Liliane to play amidst the poppies and tell each other tales of how Blessed Elua looked when taking Cassiel’s dagger to score his palm.

“Cassiel was a warrior,” Cadmar says as they climb the first leg of the hill overlooking the sanctuary. His hair tosses in the wind, fire-bright in the wind. “The fiercest of Elua’s Companions.”

Imriel frowns as he grasps at the rocks and pushes his way up the hill, determined to keep up with the older pair when Liliane abandons them for the stables and the animals there. “It was Kushiel who disciplined the sinners of God. Kushiel who should be most feared.”

He doesn’t know why the protest springs to his lips, but when Brother Selbert tells them of the Companions of Elua, Imriel always listens carefully when it comes to Kushiel.

“Fear isn’t the same as fierce,” Beryl says mildly, looking back and in the sunlight her eyes pale to the colour of the unburst poppies, green with life and living. “And each Companion brought something different to Elua and has something different to teach us.”

They climb to the first rise from which they can turn and look back at the valley, nestled peacefully between the cool, high mountains of Siovale.

Imriel looks out at the place that is his all and his world, and reflects out loud to his companions. “It can’t be a difficult thing, can it, to love as we will?”

\--

Sidonie learns it with Alaïs in the palace, taught by Bérèngere of Namarre, whose hair is the colour of apricots and whose eyes are like the emeralds in her mother’s jewellery box.

“The Precept of Blessed Elua is simply this: to love as thou wilt.”

Out in the gardens of the palace, in a garden that attaches to a small private shrine with a high roof that echoes when Alaïs laughs as she is wont to do.

Sitting on one of the stone benches beside a lawn of bright poppies, Sidonie considers what Bérèngere tells her and her sister. “Like mother and father,” she says, looking up at the priestess for confirmation.

“Your mother chose to follow Blessed Elua’s precept,” Bérèngere confirms. “For the love of your father. And they have been blessed.”

“By peace,” Alaïs offers, sitting herself on the paving stones beside the poppies and tracing a finger along the satin-bright edge of a bloom. Sidonie frowns at her and tries to pull her up to the bench, but her little sister scowls and refuses to move. To continue would cause an embarrassing altercation, and Sidonie frowns and smooths her skirt over her thighs.

“By peace,” Bérèngere agrees. “And by the trade that comes in from Alba. By the protection afforded from the Master of the Straits, and,” she adds, with a smile for Sidonie, “in two beautiful daughters.”

Later, with her mother in the evening, Sidonie watches the beautiful, gold-framed face of her mother as she composes a letter to father in response to one received just this afternoon. While Alaïs drowses on the nearby couch, weary after an afternoon in the gardens, Sidonie sits with her reading book open and watches the glow of love on her mother’s face.

Sidonie wants that - to love as her heart wills it.


End file.
